Tuesday, October 7, 2008

More than 100 people gathered on the steps of the Old Capitol Monday tocall for a moratorium on executions in Florida and a review of itscriminal justice system, which, they said, leads the nation in condemningprisoners who are later exonerated.

Reserving particular scorn for Broward County, the speakers argued thatthe death penalty is applied in a discriminatory and arbitrary mannernationally, but that it's worse than that in Florida: innocent people aregoing to death row.

Last year the Republican governor of Illinois halted executions because13 people had been released from death row there since 1973 -- 2nd mostin the nation. Florida has had 20 exonerations.

Many speakers invoked the case of the 20th: Frank Lee Smith, the FortLauderdale man who died of cancer last year after spending 14 years ondeath row and was posthumously cleared by DNA in December of the rape andmurder that sent him there.

The rally was organized by Jeff Walsh, an investigator who tried to clearSmith.

Attorney Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project, which says it has clearedat least 81 convicts -- including 10 on death row -- through DNA tests,said the Smith case highlights flaws in the legal system: convictionsbased on dubious confessions and unreliable eyewitness testimony,including cases where there is no biological evidence that can be tested.

"The Frank Lee Smith case is like turning up a rock and you see all kindsof things underneath it," Scheck said. "The state of Florida is no betterthan the state of Illinois."

A spokeswoman for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Katie Baur, said the governorcontinues to support the capital punishment system in general.

"The governor has repeatedly stated he will not sign a death warrant ifthere is any question of guilt that can be proven or disproven by a DNAtest," Baur said. "Also, why would the governor declare a moratorium onjustice when there are clearly cases in which individuals have confessedto their crimes and evidence proves their guilt? This request defies allcommon sense."

Florida has executed 51 prisoners since resuming capital punishment in1979, 8 of them since Bush took office.

Scheck reiterated his call for a federal review of all cases involvingthe Broward Sheriff's Office detective on the Smith case, Richard Scheff.

Bush has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate if Scheff lied onthe stand about whether he showed a picture of Eddie Lee Mosley -- aserial murder-rapist who lived in the neighborhood -- to the maineyewitness in the case, Chiquita Lowe.

Lowe recanted her testimony against Smith in 1989 after Walsh tracked herdown and showed her a picture of Mosley. Scheff's statements, whichcontradicted testimony he gave at Smith's original trial, discreditedLowe, and Smith stayed on death row.

"I think the federal prosecutors ought to take a very hard look atBroward County, and not just because of Frank Lee Smith, although that'sa very good example," Scheck said.

He also invoked other cases, including Jerry Frank Townsend, a retardedcarnival worker who confessed to Scheff that he raped and murdered13-year-old Sonja Yvette Marion -- a crime also later DNA linked toMosley; and Peter Dallas who was charged with 1st-degree murder and spentnearly 2 years in jail before being cleared.

Scheff's casework has also recently been questioned in the case of TimBrown, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of a BSO deputy in1990 when Brown was 14.

Broward Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Cheryl Stopnik accused Scheck ofmaking his case through the media, noting that no official complaintshave been filed and that the agency is just the first in a series oflevels of checks and balances in the criminal justice system.

"We've had no complaints regarding our homicide unit," Stopnik said. "Weare cooperating with the special prosecutor that Mr. [Michael] Satz,[Broward state attorney,] asked the governor to appoint to look into theone case regarding Frank Lee Smith."

Ron Ishoy, a spokesman for the State Attorney's Office, also downplayedthe attack on Broward criminal justice system.

"There is no cause for any hysteria that the criminal justice system inthis county is not functioning properly," Ishoy said. "The facts in eachindividual case don't support that hysteria that Mr. Scheck is trying togenerate."

The rally was held on the day before the opening of the 2001 session, atwhich several capital punishment bills are pending:

--SJR 124 would change the state constitution's prohibition on "cruel orunusual punishment'' to ``cruel and unusual punishment" -- which underfederal caselaw would lower the age at which someone could be executed to 16

--SB 366 by Sen. Alex Villalobos, R-Miami, and HB 147 by Rep. Randy Ball,R-Titusville, would allow prisoners to have their DNA tested if there isbiological evidence

--SB 292, by Sen. Debbie Wasserman Shultz, D-Weston, would pay $3.5million to the family of Frank Lee Smith

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

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My name is Fr. McElduff and I am a friend of Paul William Scott, on death row in FL. I want to thank you for your very kind, compassionate work on Paul's behalf. Please feel free to email me. ourfathermac@yahoo.com

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